


Pillow Talk

by pearl_o



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Married Couple, Old mutants in love, Post-DOFP, Running The School Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-02 23:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5267561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearl_o/pseuds/pearl_o
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles's sigh is loud and long-suffering, as if he were not guilty just as frequently as Erik of breaking their 'no shop talk after lights out' rule.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pillow Talk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [listerinezero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/listerinezero/gifts).



Erik is brushing his teeth in the ensuite when Charles calls in. 

"Did I tell you yet about Logan?"

Charles likes to start conversations like this, despite the fact that he always knows perfectly well exactly what he has or has not already confided in Erik. It has always struck Erik as a needlessly disingenuous way of introducing a topic. 

Erik continues his brushing with no haste. It's not until he's rinsed and spat and wiped off the sink that he answers. "You've told me plenty about Logan over the years," Erik says, turning back toward the bedroom, "very little of which I cared to know."

He leans against the doorframe, folding his arms in front of him. Charles has already arranged himself in bed, propped up against an excessive number of pillows with a tablet on his lap. His reading glasses are perched on the end of his nose, which is something Erik has always found annoyingly endearing; he has to stop himself from using his powers to push the metal frames back up every time.

"I was being slightly more specific than that, Erik," Charles says. He's still looking down at the screen, fingers swiping across occasionally. "I meant about what happened with Logan today."

Erik sighs as he pushes himself off the door jamb. There's nothing for it. "What happened with Logan today?" 

Charles does finally look away from his device as Erik crawls into bed beside him. "He's back. Or gone. Or changed, I suppose. There's not really a proper sort of vocabulary established for these sorts of things. But he's a different man--the man we met back in the 70s."

Erik makes a thoughtful noise in his throat as he turns this over. 

He remembers, of course. It would impossible not to. There are entire years that have gone a little vague in Erik's memory by now, but most of that week is still crystal clear, an overwhelming emotional overload--getting out of prison, seeing and talking to another person for the first time in so long. Seeing _Charles_. The brief moment of hope that Erik had let settle somewhere deep inside him, before he heard everything Logan had to say, that the future was as terrible as he feared, and worse. Betraying Charles again, and Raven, too--he would have done more, would have done anything to save their kind that fate. 

He still would, he suspects, if it came down to it. But their present was the future then, and that fate never came to pass. And there's plenty of other work for Erik to do. 

"Does he remember anything since then?" Erik says finally.

"Not since 1973," Charles says, who's been watching Erik with a steady, knowing expression as Erik sorts through his thoughts.. "In fact, the last thing he remembers is _you_. Or nearly so, anyway."

"Me?" Erik blinks. "I barely spent any time with the man. You were the one who was all chummy with him."

"Yes, well, you were the one who wrapped him up and threw him in the Potomac," Charles responds drily.

"Oh, that." In Erik's defense, it was a _very_ long time ago. "I suppose that means I'm never getting that twenty dollars he owes me from Saturday's poker game."

"I certainly wouldn't count on it." 

Charles pushes a button on his tablet to shut it off, and then sets it down on his nightstand. Erik isn't sure where he finds the room, among all the bric-a-brac covering the surface: an alarm clock, pill containers, water bottles, piles of books and journals, more electronics. 

The end table by Erik's side of the bed is, in contrast, a more spartan affair. There's a lamp, a single novel he's halfway through reading, and the digital picture frame Charles gifted to him a dozen anniversaries ago, which circles through a selection of privately cherished pictures. Their wedding portrait, for one. A photobooth strip of four poses taken in a small town Indiana Woolworths in 1962, only the slim curtain separating the two of them from the public while Charles dared to record their kiss permanently. There's even a family dinner, some twenty or thirty years back now, which is less notable for Erik's generous moustache than for the impression it gives that his children are happy and content to be in the same room with him.

Charles's setting down his tablet is a cue, and Erik takes it, as he always does, snapping off the lights. Once Charles has snuggled down into the sheets, Erik rolls over to give him a quick kiss goodnight. On another night, the kiss might be more prolonged and lead to other enjoyable activities, but that's rather less likely on weeknights these days, especially at this point in the semester. 

There might be time for a quickie in the morning, Erik reflects. He's usually the first one up in the mansion, taking the puppy out for a run before the students start to rise, and Charles always appears to his best advantage lying in bed with the early morning sunlight sneaking in through the windows of their bedroom. It's always tempting to just climb back in with him, and sometimes Erik gives in to that temptation and wakes Charles up with fingers on his nipples or teeth on his earlobe. Charles is historically highly susceptible to Erik's methods. In this area, at least.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. There's no point in planning on it; too many variables that might change things, students or staff or chores needing their attention. 

What they really need, in Erik's opinion, is a vacation, some time away and alone together, but that's out of the question right now. There's simply too much going on. They had started to make plans a year or two back, but that was right before that trial had started with the scaled girl in Colorado and everything went to hell for a while. And then there had been that bill they were lobbying for, and then the improvements to the grounds they'd been putting off so long, and then--well, there was always something.

Really, he can't remember the last time they managed a vacation, now that he thinks about it. Maybe in another year or two they could manage to get away? Something to ponder, at least, however unlikely it might be. 

He's almost asleep, still thinking vaguely of the tropics, when another thought occurs to him. 

"Who did you get to fill in for his history class, then?" Erik says aloud.

Charles's sigh is loud and long-suffering, as if he were not guilty just as frequently as Erik of breaking their 'no shop talk after lights out' rule. "Ororo volunteered."

"Ororo has plenty of her own duties to take care of," Erik says disapprovingly. "You can't allow her to take everything upon herself."

"You still talk about her as if she's a young girl, and not a capable and competent grown woman."

Erik sniffs. "Don't be ridiculous."

Erik can't see Charles roll his eyes in the dark, of course, but the mental sensation Charles shares is more or less equivalent. Erik's quite familiar with it. 

"My dear, you do know that if I am ever going to retire, I do have to start training someone to succeed me as headmaster," Charles says, sounding particularly pompous, "and part of that grooming has to involve increased responsibilities--"

"Ha!" Erik says. "Ha! Don't start with that, Charles, we both know perfectly well you'll never retire." 

Charles has been dragging out that line for going on two decades now; it never goes anywhere. For all that Erik complains, he doesn't think he would actually like it if it did. Charles built this school without Erik, spent years running it alone while they were separated, his pride and joy and his life, really. But it's been so long now since Erik came to stay here, that it's hard to remember sometimes when the school wasn't part of _him_ as well, decades of mutant children learning and training and growing, all running through his veins.

"At any rate," Erik continues, thinking out loud, "if Ororo is going to be taking another class--I don't suppose Logan happened to leave a lesson plan she can use? No, I doubt he ever made a lesson plan in his life--we should shuffle someone else to cover powers training with the youngest children tomorrow. Jean's always been good with them."

"Jean's leaving for Washington again in the morning, remember?"

"So she is." Erik sorts through the possibilities in his head. They're unfortunately a bit understaffed this semester, with Raven and Irene off in the Eastern Hemisphere again. Logan did have to pick an inconvenient time to take himself out of commission. Erik assumes Charles will have him up to speed within a few days, but in the meantime he's not good for much more than cafeteria duty and room checks. That leaves Scott, who's better and less awkward with the older kids rather than the younger; Kurt, who simply lets the little ones walk all over him; a few of the rookie teachers, who are still establishing their rhythms and thus probably shouldn't be juggled around…

"I suppose I'll have to take the training," Erik says grudgingly. "The physics class will just have to accept their exams might take a bit longer to get graded."

"Don't forget the deadline for that book review," Charles murmurs. His voice has gotten softer, and his mental boundaries a bit more relaxed, as they often do as he's beginning to fall asleep, his mind reaching out to entwine itself along Erik's in slumber. Erik feels abruptly much more tired himself, and he has to stifle a yawn.

"That's practically done," he says. "Just a few finishing touches."

"As long as I have time to read it over before you send it in," Charles says, and for all his drowsiness, there's a marked firmness in his tone. 

"Yes, old man, I've heard it a thousand times," Erik says. "Now go to sleep already."

"What do you think I've been trying to do?" Charles says, so softly Erik almost misses it.

There are many more comments Erik could make in response to that, but he forbears.

It's only a few moments before he can hear Charles's quiet, steady snores, and only a few moments after _that_ before Erik is asleep as well.


End file.
